I thought that only two things were clear from the New York Times poll on the front page of yesterday’s paper. First, everyone is confused. Second, people want the public option.
I was shocked by the second part (not the first part – I am also confused). Asked “Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan like Medicare, that would compete with private insurance plans?,” 65% or respondents favor such a program, 26% oppose, and 9% have no opinion. And to the first point, that is the only concrete statement about health care reform that more than two-fifths of respondents were able to answer. Has Obama explained it well enough? 37%. Do you understand what’s under consideration? 37%. Does the GOP have an articulated alternative? 14%. 14% is a coin flip among the 28% who weren’t listening to the question. And on all specific details, the preponderance of answers are “don’t know enough.”
But people seem to want the public option. From this poll – and it is only one poll – that strongly emerges as the only conclusion that people have drawn about what’s on the table. Seems like we should do it, then, huh?
By the way, 26% still think there are death panels.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
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2 comments:
As much as I'd like to agree with your comment here, I'm not sure that I can. Polls on health care are extraordinarily wacky.
I'd refer you to the excellent summary by Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com. He cites a poll that asks respondents to define a public option from a list of choices, and only 37% correctly identify the term. Further, he explains that very minor variations in how you word the question significantly shift the level of support; as low as 35% or as high as 83% support have been polled. Granted, an average of those values still puts the public option firmly on the plus side.
It gets even more complicated when you start bringing in additional factors. The wording on these polls, when consistent, is still fairly rosy in my opinion. Words like "option," "choice," and "compete" are heavily favored by the American people. How can you oppose options? The numbers shoot higher still when pollsters ask if they favor providing health coverage to people who can't afford it. It's not that every one of these statements isn't true - they are - it's that it doesn't provide the whole story.
If you get into some of the more difficult aspects of the public option, the numbers drop precipitously. Ask people if they favor the government forcing people to buy health care; Obama successfully campaigned against Hillary on this point in the Democratic primary, suggesting it doesn't sit comfortably with many on the left. Or, ask if they still favor the public option if it means higher taxes or adding to the deficit. The worst numbers come when pollsters ask whether support remains if the public option crowds out private insurance, or may cause some to lose the employer-provided insurance they currently have (polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of Americans are happy with their current policies). These cast the public option in a more difficult light, but I believe they're also true to some degree.
HR 3200 would not take full effect until well after the 2012 election (2013 for some aspects, 2019 for others), and I think there's good reason for this. At the end of the day, public insurance may be a very good thing for this country, but passing a law and being responsible to the voters for its effects (good and bad) are two very different things. Obama and the Democrats don't want to take that chance in 2010 or 2012. That tells me more than any of these polls.
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